


fairy tale

by lucigucci



Series: so you're a simp for elliot stardew valley... [2]
Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28951353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucigucci/pseuds/lucigucci
Summary: elliott asks you for help with his book-- you're more than happy to obligehttps://open.spotify.com/playlist/3pOoiImyTFyp6KqTSCbeXm?si=gTybXwwZQKO7aVnEBVviyA
Relationships: Elliott/Female Player (Stardew Valley), Elliott/Male Player (Stardew Valley), Elliott/Player (Stardew Valley)
Series: so you're a simp for elliot stardew valley... [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123496
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	fairy tale

In between your frantic travels across town, you’ve subconsciously memorized Elliott’s schedule, and made it a habit to stop and chat every time you see him-- which is increasingly more often. You’ve also taken to hold onto objects you think he might like. At first, it’s an especially healthy parsnip from the farm (that you feel very proud to say “I grew it myself”), and then it’s a gemstone from the mine, and then a bouquet of tulips, and now every time you see him it’s one-sided Christmas all over again. At least he seems pleased; that’s all you need.

But you have yet to try your luck at his home. Compared to the rest of the town, he’s as reclusive as a cryptid. Attempting to visit his shack would be like stealing the shell of a hermit crab before it’s grown out of it. 

He must have realized this at some point, too, because when you meet him at his normal spot at the bridge south of town, he meets your eyes and crooks his fingers, signalling you to follow him as he strolls toward the beach. You trot after him at once. “Elliott!” you call. (He insisted you drop the Mister a few days ago. “I believe we’ve passed that point,” he joked. “Besides, I’m not your grandfather.”) 

“I need your help with something,” he shouts over his shoulder.

Your help? That’s new. You quicken your pace to catch up with him. “What do you need?” you say. “Do you need me to bring you something? Make you something?”

“Nothing of the sort. I need your brain.”

“My-- brain?”

He turns left, toward his cabin, and you hesitate, but he smiles and beckons to you again. “Come in, don’t be shy. It’s chilly today. We don’t want you catching a cold, do we?”

Your pulse quickens. “Don’t worry about me. I’m hearty, I can take it.”

“If you are incapacitated with an illness, I will have nobody to come visit me, and if I have nobody to come visit me, I will be very sad and alone, and neither of us wants that.”

“Are… you joking, or…”

Elliott unlocks the door with an enigmatic smile. “You tell me.”

Bemused, you follow him inside. It’s about as bare-bones as you might expect from the exterior except for a framed picture on the wall and a grand piano by the bed. The roof looks like it leaks during storms, and the walls are so thin you can hear the seaside wind whistling through the trees, but it’s cozy all the same. Elliott takes a seat at the desk in the corner. “Thanks for letting me in,” you say. “I’ve always wanted to see where you live.”

“As perceptive as you are, I’m sure you have noticed that I don’t trust as easily as the rest of the town, but you have more than earned my confidence. Feel free to stop by anytime you like.”

“I don’t know… I don’t see any crabs,” you joke. “Might not be worth it.”

He chuckles. “Come back tomorrow, maybe you’ll get lucky.”

“What do you need my help with?”

“Ah. That.” Elliott rearranges his hair over one shoulder to catch your eye easier, and opens the desk drawer to retrieve a collection of loose papers and worn notebooks. “Do you remember when I told you that I’ve been suffering from a severe case of writer’s block? I hoped you might help clear my mind.”

Your heart falls. “Oh-- Elliott, I’m sorry, I really am, but I’m a farmer, I don’t know anything about writing!”

“Exactly!”

“Er… exactly?”

He spreads his notes out on the desk in one eager motion. “I have been looking at this all wrong. I need a new perspective, entirely different from my own, in order to find my lost inspiration! Why shouldn’t it be you?”

“I’m flattered, but I’m nowhere near your level,” you say. “I wrote a few papers back in school, that’s it. Hell, I plant things for a living. I couldn’t tell you anything you don’t already know, and even then, I’d probably be wrong!”

“All you have to do is answer a few questions. You can do that just fine.”

You scoot the piano bench closer to Elliott’s seat to join him at the desk. “Okay, shoot. Anything I can do to help.”

He smiles approvingly. “Then, tell me… what was the last book you enjoyed? Er, fiction book, that is.”

You have to really think about this. You’ve been so busy on the farm, you haven’t even touched a book for a long while. “I think… yes, I think it was called Radio Waving, I don’t remember the author’s name.”

“What was it about?”

“It was a long time ago, so I might be getting parts of it wrong, but it’s about these two gods interfering with the lives of a town on the coast, and there are three humans who try to stop their feud to save everyone.”

Elliott sits back, steeples his fingers beside his lips. “Then it’s something of an adventure?”

“Well, yes and no. I think the gods were in love… and two of the humans fell in love too… and the action sort of built up around who was in love with whom.”

“A romance, then. A romance in the midst of great turmoil.” 

You nod. “That sounds right.”

A hush falls over the cabin. Wind blows outside, rattling the windows on their hinges. Rain is on the way. “A romance,” Elliott repeats, softly. “Now, there’s an idea…”

“Is this helping?”

“Oh, immensely!”

You switch your gaze from his thoughtful face to his collage of papers. “You know, never told me what _your_ book is about,” you remark.

He follows your eyes to the same sprawling words. “I… er, this is embarrassing. I haven’t decided. I have a cast of characters, a location, obstacles galore, and yet… no concrete plot. Isn’t that the most foolish thing you’ve ever heard?”

“I don’t think so. You just need a direction to follow.”

“Indeed; I have created a map with no path, or even a destination.”

Another silence. Elliott jumps in his seat unprompted. “Ack! I’m taking up your time!”

“No, no!” you say. “I really want to help! Besides, I should take a break from work anyway!”

He relaxes back. “Ah… good. Me too.”

He’s right. Every time you’ve seen him, he’s got his nose in a book or journal, or he’s glaring into the distance like the horizon has offended him, and then his expression lightens the moment he catches sight of you. He may not be performing labor like you, but he’s still under pressure. You rise from the piano bench. There’s a wistful glint in Elliott’s eye that’s gone in an instant, seizing your heart. “Can I make you a coffee or something?” you ask.

Elliott’s eyes widen, lips soften into a smile. “Y-yes! Thank you!”

You cross the room to the kitchenette to rifle through the cabinets. Like the rest of the home, it’s sparse and a little dusty. “I can do it,” he offers. “I’m your host, after all. I should’ve prepared something when you first came in.

“That’s okay, you rest, you need it.”

His stare brushes against your back while you fill up the kettle with tapwater. Outside, rain patters on the roof, soft at first, then pounding like a drum. Your leaky roof theory is about to be put to the test. “Elliott,” you ponder.

“Hm?”

“Do you ever think about romance?”

You can’t see his face but you hear him turn around to face his desk. “I don’t know… in a manner of speaking, I suppose I do. Doesn’t everyone? I mean, if I weren’t such a romantic at heart, I doubt I would’ve moved into Stardew Valley in the first place. There’s a reason we all don’t shack up on beaches and dream about writing books.”

You place the kettle on the stove, hands trembling as you light it. “I guess so.”

“And you?”

“Me?”

“Do you… think about it? Romance, I mean?” He chuckles nervously. “Ah, what am I saying? You came here to be alone, just like me. Of course you aren’t looking for-- that.”

A gust of wind carries a spattering of rain against the windows. “I don’t know,” you mumble. “I’ve always wanted to settle down, but I wouldn’t just choose anybody off the street for romance’s sake.”

“Right. Good. I agree, yes, completely.”

Coffee’s robust scent hits your senses from the bag in your hands even before you to measure the grounds out. A sudden daydream smacks you in the face-- earthy steam wafting up, Elliott’s smile illuminated by morning sunlight, one of his hands pressing a hot cup of coffee into yours, the other resting in the small of your back, auburn hair tangled so bad it looks like his whole head is on fire, a rooster crowing outside, and as he leans in--

“I think the water’s done,” Elliot remarks.

You blink. A high-pitched whistle is piercing both your ears and you hastily remove the kettle from the stovetop. “Sorry, I drifted off,” you squeak.

“I do that a lot too,” he replies. You can see his smirk from the corner of your peripheral. “The rain makes it easy to doze off, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah… ha, I’m definitely not looking forward to walking back home through that.” Coffee trickles through the filter like rain down the gutter. 

Elliott pauses, then replies, “so stay.”

You turn around, incredulous. You’ve only just been allowed clearance in his home, and now he’s asking you to wait out the storm with him? “Stay… here? With you?”

“Until the rain passes, yes. If-- if you want! You don’t have to!”

“I want to,” you interrupt.

Your eyes meet. He takes a deep breath. “Good,” he says. “Erm. Good.

“Thank you, Elliott.”  
“Ah, I’m just glad you’re here with me, really! But-- but while you’re here, would you come and read some of these over when the coffee is done? I’d like your opinion.”

You do. The coffee is served in mismatched mugs, held in cupped hands to retain warmth in the damp weather. Elliott insists you move the piano bench closer while you speak about people and places that don’t exist and pass the time with mirrored smiles and laughs.


End file.
